A 2,205 year record of tropical cyclone strikes near Yucatan, Mexico, from mud layers in a stalagmite

Tropical cyclones (TCs), known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and Typhoons in the Pacific, are among the most destructive and deadly natural disasters that occur on Earth. Attempts to understand how TCs relate to the global climate system, and future risk assessments are dependent upon having records of TC activity that pre-date the modern meteorological records, which are commonly not older than 130 years (Nott, 2003). Paleotempestology is a sub-discipline of paleoclimatology that attempts to extend the TC record beyond the meteorological record through the use of proxies. Presented here is the establishment of a paleotempestology proxy based on clastic mud being suspended in the water column by floods caused by TCs and deposited in stalagmite CH-1, collected in June of 2007 from Cenote Chaltun-Ha, a low-lying cave from the Yucatan Peninsula. CH-1 was dated by a combination of 210Pb, U/Th, and layer counting techniques, creating an age model for its entire length. The years with mud layers were compared to the historical TC record from 1852-2006. Nineteen mud layers were identified for this time period. All of the mud layers deposited in years with at least one TC passing within 330 km of Cenote Chaltun-Ha.